


the history that produced them

by PikaCheeka



Series: a sea change [2]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alcohol, Child Abuse, Drugs, F/M, Incest, Lots of Sex, M/M, Multi, Mystery, Rape, Violence, Yakuza, light crime noir, original characters used to shed light on canon relationships, the sex isn't good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:43:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: In the six months since they slept together, Virus' and Trip's partnership has not been going as anticipated. When someone from their past unexpectedly reappears, they discover that they have no more control over their histories than they do their current lives. And Virus doesn't appreciate being compromised.Sequel to "a sea change". Could possibly be read on its own.





	the history that produced them

**Author's Note:**

> I had so much fun with "a sea change" earlier this year that I decided to go ahead with a sequel (which was equally fun)! The woman who may or may not be Virus' mother makes a return (and yes, SOME secrets get resolved here!) This one picks up approximately six months after the first one left off. This one is, in areas, more comical than the first, and in other areas, more tragic, but the overall tone and content are similar. 
> 
> A big thank you to catfeet, who helped me with some of the plot as well as the names (and for not shoving my corpse into a coin locker). And thank you so much to all who have been reading my fics, especially those of you who read "a sea change" and this one. These two are kind of my babies and the pieces I have worked the hardest on. All reads and feedback mean a lot to me!

“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” 

\- Murakami Haruki

 

 

**\- one.**

He can't believe it when he sees it. _She's with Toue. Why is she with Toue? This can't be possible. But it is._ Flashing a smile at the screen as she tosses her sleek hair and answers some nonsense question Trip doesn’t even hear.

And because he can’t believe it, he’s slow to change the channel, slow enough that Virus catches a glimpse of what’s on the screen and immediately changes it back with a languid, “Hey, I wanna see that.”

There is no recognition in his eyes, no dawning horror as he realizes who she is, and so Trip sighs and leans back, makes a pointed attempt to pretend it’s no big deal. Because if Virus doesn’t notice, then there is even more wrong with the situation than he had imagined. "Don't wanna watch stuff about work though."

"Just a few minutes. Because it’s about work. Shouldn't we know what's going on?"

He drapes his arm over the back of the couch and begins gently tapping Virus' shoulder, running fingers up the side of his neck. He wants nothing more than to turn this off, to forget he’d ever even seen it, but if he can't manage that without drawing more attention to it than he wants to, he can distract him.

But Virus squirms away from him, just as he expects him to. "She's kinda hot."

"Mmm, so are you." He persists, wraps his arm around his neck again and leans into him. The smell of Virus, the touch of his skin, is ever enough to make him feel as if he is drowning. After nearly twenty years of silently following him, of carrying a reserved indifference towards the older man, he still can’t quite adjust to their new life. Neither of them can. They'd first had sex nearly six months ago and had only fucked maybe a dozen times since. It was not for lack of desire, at least as far as Trip can tell, because the sex that first night had been amazing; Virus had been ravenous, pushing him down and riding him for a fourth round. But something shifted after that, despite Virus still regularly staring at him with that inexplicable longing in his eyes. It was because sex had knocked something off kilter, altered the balance between them somehow, opened a door that Trip is now unsure if he ever should have opened. Occasionally one would crawl into the other's bed and in the morning they'd follow their usual routine, as if it hadn’t even happened, and as much as Trip wants to believe it’s merely because they are comfortable, he can see the shadows under Virus’ eyes. The change is putting a strain on him, and Trip has at times wondered if it were merely because they kept it hidden, silent. He has quietly wondered what he might do if he grew pushy with him, flirtatious, instead of just silently fucking in the dark. Now is as good a time as any.

"Stop it," but he's grinning now as he bats his hand off. "How old do you think she is, hm?"

 _Forty-eight._ But he doesn't say it. "Fifty?"

"No way. Well, not too bad. I'd fuck her anyway."

"She's way out of your league." A brazen lie, as he'd had a six-month fling with her only a year ago, and Virus is classier than him. But though he can't keep the sting from his voice, Virus doesn't seem to notice.

"I know how to get doctors in bed."

“What’s that got to do with it?” There’s more bite to his words then he cares to acknowledge, Virus’ doctor fixation is something that continues to bother him.

Virus glances at him as if he were stupid. “She’s a doctor.”

And as he watches for another few seconds, sees the byline flash below her, he knows it to be true. He feels sick. _A doctor._ Working for Toue, perhaps all along. Maybe she was always a doctor. Maybe she had worked for him fifteen years ago, twenty years ago. Maybe she'd read their records. Maybe that was how she knew everything, after all, and maybe she was never anyone, the spider taking advantage of motherless men, spinning them in webs of stories to bind them to her. _Maybe she even operated on us, made us who and what we are now_ , and he feels the rage begin to seep into his veins. He remembers the night he’d almost hit her, the night when she was remarkably unafraid of him, when she had stared him down until he dropped his gaze and she could press her fingers into his scalp to calm him. _She knew it would work. She knew him from before…_ And so he cuts it off, inhales the scent of Virus who orients him, and mutters in the most casual voice he can manage, "So am I."

"What are you talking about?"

"Proctologist."

"Don't be dumb," but his fingers coil around Trip's now, long and pretty, and darts a sidelong glance at him, eyelids lowered in that certain way of his.

It’s all the invitation he needs. To fuck. To forget. But he doesn’t let himself wonder if he should be thinking that way as he pushes him down, rolls on top of him before he can stop himself. Eleven days since they’d slept together.

"Not now, not now! I want to watch..." but he's laughing as he says it. He's sliding his hands down Trip's shoulders and arching up into his touch. Trip is used to hesitancy, to a nervousness simmering just below his veneer of desire, and this sudden eagerness brings a rush of relief to him, makes him almost forget the woman on the screen. Perhaps it’s the unexpectedness, the casual way he approached him, that is what did it. Perhaps this is all they needed after all.

He glances at the TV one last time, sees the way her gaze falls on the camera confidently as she smirks. It doesn’t matter, _she_ doesn’t matter, because he’s fucking her son and that’s all he’d ever wanted. But he doesn’t fuck him, because as he begins touching him below the waist he sees the hesitation in his eyes, feels the stiffness in his body even as he arches up into him. Instead, he whispers that he’s tired, that he just wants to jerk him off, and tries to ignore the relief that flashes across the older man’s face for the briefest of moments as he shoves his hand beneath the elastic waistband of his pajamas and grabs him. He rarely wears underwear to bed.

“Keep it in the pants, keep it in,” he gasps.

“That’s so weird.”

“I don’t want cum everywhere,” but he’s smirking as he says it, pushing Trip’s hand harder against him, curling his own fingers around himself, eager to have them jerk him off together.

Trip grinds against him as he touches him, tries not to think about how much he’d rather be inside of him, tries not to think about how quickly Virus climaxes as compared to when he’s fucking him, when it’s clear that he’s struggling, uncomfortable.

“That was good,” he whispers then, eyes closing slowly, and Trip is left to lick his fingers and feel unsatisfied.

It isn’t long before Virus’ breath slows. He’d already been exhausted, and when tired he’d often fall asleep almost immediately after orgasm. And as he sleeps, Trip finds himself quietly relieved that even if the sex is how it is, the older man can still fall asleep by him like this, sprawled across the couch and his lap with his cardigan unbuttoned and his shirt untucked. Trip doesn’t know how long he watches him before he gently runs his hand up his belly, watches how his eyelashes flutter and he smiles in his sleep. _Content_.

It’s only then that he remembers the TV, which he switches off in disgust.

 

**\- two.**

The next several days pass uneventfully, without a word from Virus about the woman on TV, and Trip hopes he has forgotten. After all, it would hardly be the first attractive woman Virus had seen and wanted to fuck; such comments were hardly unusual for either of them. Trip doesn’t answer. Whatever shifted in their relationship, one thing hasn’t changed. They still go out with others. They still have random hookups and threesomes with prostitutes, threesomes that were now intimate on a new level. Trip still sees his married women and otaku girls, and Virus still slips off with older men and comes back at three in the morning with cash they find a way to spend within twenty-four hours. Being mutually exclusive had never seemed particularly important to either of them, and jealousy wasn’t in their makeup. At least, it was easier to tell himself that. _It was only ever an issue with one person anyway, right?_

Virus peers over his shoulder now as he leans on the back of the couch, clutching his fourth cup of coffee for the day, practically jittering. They hadn’t gotten home until nearly four in the morning, but Trip still managed to get up at seven while Virus lay in bed and moaned until eleven, making them atrociously late for a meeting that fortunately neither had to talk at. Now they sit alone in the lounge of their headquarters, the sprawling basement of an office building that the Yakuza owned, just as they owned an alarming percentage of the non-residential buildings in the Old District. He toys with the package that had been dropped off for him as Virus suddenly clears his throat.

“Do you think peoples’ lives really flash before their eyes when they die?”

“Mebbe if their life is that short or boring.”

“Or maybe it’s _too_ interesting. Maybe instead of the stuff they always thought about, they remember everything they’d forgotten in that last moment. All the horrible things. Maybe that’s the brain’s way of preparing for death, of shutting down before the body goes.”

Trip opens and closes his mouth once, unsure of what to say. But he’s already off, chattering far too fast for Trip to keep up with; he doesn’t expect responses when he’s like this, content only to speak. It’s something the younger man has always been grateful for, as it allows him to mull over the one or two sentences he manages to catch and come up with a response. “Do people only forget bad things?”

“Huh?” Virus pauses, and in that silence he tilts his coffee mug upside down and sighs softly. “Empty again. Why else would someone forget something?”

“Most people don’t decide what to forget.” He hesitates. Those first six years of his life, gone the second he’d laid eyes on Virus, because nothing else mattered to him but the boy before him and somewhere deep in his mind, his subconscious made that decision for him, realized the importance of that moment before it crystalized in his awareness. “Just us. S’why everyone else is so stupid.”

“Mm,” he finally realizes that Trip has opened the package and leans forward, “That’s appropriate for the topic at hand. Why’s it look different?”

“Law enforcement clip with fifteen rounds and a sixteenth for the chamber. From America. You suck at aiming so I figure you need extra.” He can tell Virus is impressed, the insult bouncing off of him because they both know it’s true.

“It’s for me?”

“Ya. It’s your Glock.” The older man’s gun of choice, which Trip had always found odd. He suspects it’s merely because it’s the first one he ever got, and he just stuck with it. _He likes what he likes._

“You should teach me how to shoot.”

“I think it’s a lost cause.” But he likes the idea of it, of standing behind him, leaning on his shoulder and adjusting his arm, being able to touch him intimately the way he used to.

“Mm, come on. Even three or four gunshots are unlikely to bring the police around here, and I have a silencer.” Trip knows there are exactly 167 guns on Midorijima, an absurd amount given the population, and he knows that most people here have learned to duck their heads and stay silent when they hear something.

“You’re practically blind. Just shoot everyone from a meter away and you’re fine.”

Virus laughs then, a sound that makes something inside of Trip hum, as he glances at his now-empty mug. “Can practice on Morphine drones. You know last week I stuck a syringe needle up someone’s nose and he didn’t even try to fight?”

“Why would you do that…” but he knows why, and he bites back the grin. Virus was the one who’d designed the drug that took those in Morphine out of commission, just as he’d designed the drug that could wipe out specific memories, ones that trigger various chemical reactions in the brain, as if he’d decided what others could forget just as he’d decided for himself, and just as he’d designed more than few street drugs in his time _, aphrodisiacs_. He was smart when he wanted to be, when it doesn’t come down to sex or common sense.

 “You know why,” and he’s wrapping his arms around Trip’s neck now, leaning over the back of the couch and putting his full weight onto his shoulders. “It’s why you followed me back then, hm?”

Trip feels his breath catch in his throat as he grins.

 

**\- three.**

"We got invited to that gala."

"We did?"

"Mm, well. Toue wants us to go so we can escort Sei around the crowd."

He sighs. Escorting Sei around is hardly interesting, especially when they are in public and can’t do anything too strange to him. "That's it? Do we get to eat?"

"I don’t think he wants us around but it'd be too rude for him to refuse us if we're working there."

And he remembers the woman on the TV. "But it'll be a lot of...."

"Doctors." Virus finishes for him, pushes his glasses up and grins. “Should be a fun night.”

The _doctors_. He doesn’t like that, not with what he knows. _And she’s a doctor_. His luck had run out. He bites his lip and glances over at Virus, now humming as he types something into the search engine. He almost doesn’t hear the older man as he continues.

“I might wear my wedding ring for it.” His wedding ring. He’d bought one several years ago after reading somewhere that women liked married men, would wear it when he was trying to seduce them, only to slip it off halfway through a conversation or a dinner party. A small gesture of manipulation, an invitation and a suggestion that nearly every woman Virus met fell for. _He really wants to seduce her,_ Trip realizes as Virus continues. “We should go get new suits for it.”

“Huh,” he jerks out of his thoughts.

“I think we should get red. We don’t have any in red anymore.”

“Virus.”

He waves his hand lazily, “As long as your roots don’t show it’ll be fine. Cranberry tone, maybe.”

 _It’s not the hair color._ “I gotta tell you something.”

“Hm?” As he turns in the chair to glance at him, a lock of hair falls in his eyes and he absently pushes it aside, long fingers catching Trip’s attention in the way they always do. Trip almost doesn’t say the next words.

“She was the woman.”

Virus freezes, exhales slowly and arches his eyebrows. “The blonde lady on TV, you mean?”

Of course he would know exactly who Trip was referring to. He sighs, “Yea.”

“And if she was with Toue then… they were talking about this. So she’ll be there.”

“Yea.” The truth is, he isn’t sure if she will be there, but he has to assume the worst. She isn’t the sort to pass up free food either, as he and his wallet know well.

“She was the one you were with for months? Mm, that you were sort of steady with, and wouldn’t let me meet?”

“Yea.”

He drops his hands to his lap and leans back in his chair, whatever he had been doing on the computer long forgotten now. There’s a pensiveness to his eyes that Trip doesn’t care for as says, “You said she was kind of like me.”

“Yup. You saw her.”

“And you had sex with her so often before she left I thought you’d ... Well, you know. Tell me what it was like to fuck her. I need all the details.”

It’s so similar to how they used to be, when the older man would corner him every time he came home smelling like a woman, when he’d harass him for every filthy detail. He used to tell him, too, used to revel in how Virus’ fingers would curl and how his eyes would glisten, used to lean in and whisper conspiratorially and preen under his attentions. He still would, were the subject anyone else. “No.”

“Come on, I want to know. You always tell me about everyone else.” There’s a bite to his words, as if even after everything he is still angry. Because she has that ability, to worm her way between them and poison everything she touches. _Not unlike Virus_.

“No.”

He grabs his arm then, and with his next words Trip understands that it was not anger, but desperation in his voice. “You can fuck me after.”

Like it’s a bargaining tool. Like it’s a sacrifice. The silence that falls between them seems to last for an eternity.

“Does that mean you don’t…” he trails off. _Like it. Enjoy it. Want to be around me anymore now that we fucked up and took it to that level._ He could say any of these things, but he can’t find the words. He thinks of Virus’ hesitancy, his stiffness beneath him some nights, the way he often asks to be taken from behind and buries his face in the pillow, how he pretends the next morning that it never happened.

Virus doesn’t speak for an agonizing moment, and when he replies, his voice is small, his eyes downcast. “I don’t know.”

 

**\- four.**

“In all probability, they never check more than two bundles under the top layer in a suitcase or bag. Forty-seven percent only check the top, another thirty-one only check one bundle beneath, fourteen check two, and the rest check more. Mm, I also know which ones they are most likely to check in the second layer, so we only need two down there. Fake bills in the middle.” Virus licks a finger as he counts out another stack, making sure nobody shaved anything off the top. They’re supposed to deliver it tonight, and it’s times like this over the last week that Trip is grateful for. Buried deep in their work for the Yakuza, he can forget about Toue sometimes, about that woman, about the dinner approaching when they are bound to meet, when his life is bound to go to hell.

“What if you place ‘em in the wrong slot?” He’s rolling his eyes at the irony of Virus being this anal about counting every single bill while suggesting that nobody else does. He’d even tried to do it during a deal once, infuriating everyone in the general vicinity.

Virus pauses before slowing peeling his gloves off with his teeth, a habit he’d had since he was young that Trip had always found uncomfortably arousing. His entire outfit is perfect, the fitted vest that cuts in at the waist, the wingtip shoes, the haphazardly rolled up sleeves; he always looks good when collecting money. “We run.”

“Can you guys stop talking about that when there are people over?” A voice echoing from the general direction of the bathroom. _The repairman_ , or whatever he is. Trip curses inwardly; he’d entirely forgotten about him.

“Shut up,” they both say at the same time.

“I won’t be implicated…”

“A stellar citizen,” Virus purrs as he continues counting the money out. “ _I forgot about him_ ,” he whispers a moment later.

“Me too.” Not that it’s unusual for him to forget other people exist. “What’s he even doing again?”

“He’s putting the heat lamp in the bathroom.”  Because Virus is always cold, always basking in heat whenever he can find it, even if it’s pressed against Trip on an August night, and he finally realized that by having a thermal lamp put in the bathroom ceiling, he wouldn’t have to complain about getting out of the shower and freezing.

There’s a silence for a moment then as they start stacking everything up, neat piles to throw in a duffle bag, and then abruptly, the voice echoing from down the hall again. “What’s this box in here anyway? Looks like a coffin.”

“Stop asking questions,” Virus jerks his head over his shoulder, fingers twitching.

Trip can see how the question threw him off, the slight panic in his voice, and he grins as he punches his shoulder. “Hey, if we cranked the heat lamp up, could we fry someone in that?”

Virus all but hisses at him, but there is a gleam in his eyes and Trip can tell he’s trying not to laugh. And then he presses his face to his ear and whispers in that way of his that is far louder than normal speech, a whisper that could be heard all over their apartment, “ _It is iron after all_.”

And loudly, “Hey, can you fix the dishwasher while you’re here?” Virus’ eyes are too bright, his grin too wide, and Trip knows he’s irritated with himself that he forgot they had someone over, that they didn’t proof the apartment and ensure there was nothing questionable out like they normally do.

“I’m an electrician.”

“Guess we’re eating out again tonight,” Virus sighs. “Where do you want to go? Your turn to pick.”

 _Just like old days_. Trip keeps his face blank, but he’s relieved. Lately every small thing, any hint of an ordinary life between them unaffected by what happens in the bedroom has come as a relief to him. He doesn’t like thinking about things this much. “Curry okay? The 24-hour place with the bar.”

“Mmm. They have the best cutlets there. But you have to eat the biggest dish or you pay for both. If you can do it, it’s on me.” But even as he says it, he skims a 10,000 yen bill off the top of pile and slips it into his pocket.

He doesn’t know what makes him say the next words. “I’ll finally tell you a little. About how I fucked her, yea?” _Just like old days_ , when they’d regularly go to the bar, smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in a no-smoking booth and drink themselves shitfaced while howling over their latest conquests.

“Really?” His face brightens at this.

 

**\- five.**

He doesn't recognize her.

Virus murmurs to himself when he sees her, plucks at Trip’s sleeve and nods in her direction. "She's so familiar. Why is she so familiar?"

Trip nearly chokes. He’d expected her to be there, expected there to be some sort of shitstorm once they met, because there was no way he could keep _not_ recognizing her, if she is who he thinks she is, in person. And yet here, even from afar, as they look at her chatting with several fools who were only invited because of their Swiss bank accounts, Virus is confused, and the crisis Trip had tried to prepare himself for ends up not being the crisis he instead has to navigate. "Uhm...you saw her on TV."

“No shit. And you had sex with her a hundred times.” He pauses as his eyes narrow. “It’s something else.”

He cringes and pulls his arm away from his grasp only to wrap it around Virus’ neck and steer him away. “Let’s get drinks.”

Virus makes no attempt to push him off as he stumbles after him, his weight warm and assuring against Trip’s side. “Maybe I just saw her somewhere when she was here last year. She does stand out a bit. Oh good, it’s an open bar. I’m glad Sei’s sick, hm? He always makes those comments when we drink in front of him. It’s not _our_ fault his body can’t handle alcohol.”

But Trip only shrugs, inwardly breathes a sigh of relief at how quickly Virus is distracted. “Think we got assigned seats here?”

“Yea, we’re still at the table with Toue because Sei was supposed to come. He told me we could sit wherever though.”

He snorts, “He doesn’t like being around us.” But it irritates him. He doesn’t want to be near Toue, doesn’t want to be the center of attention tonight. He wants nothing more than to go home and avoid the woman and drink himself into a stupor so that he can fall asleep in bed with Virus beside him and have an excuse not to fuck him. Because ever since _you can fuck me after_ they haven’t done it, not even last night when Virus had stepped into the tub immediately after Trip and touched him.

“Just you. He likes me fine,” Virus purrs as he leans over the bar and studies the shelf of gins. He’d finally pulled away from under Trip’s arm two steps from the bar only to grab his arm, curl his fingers around his elbow. “What to start with? I’ll pick one for you, too, yea?”

He spends so long agonizing over the drinks that Trip loses his interest. He’ll gladly drink whatever Virus gives him, gladly drink anything in the bar right now. He glances over his shoulder at the rest of the room, trying to determine from the crowd how drunk they can reasonably get tonight, and that’s when she catches his eye from across the room.

He sees her eyes widen, her eyebrows rise, her lips part in what might be surprise, but there is something in her gaze he isn’t ready to face, not after what he now knows. He’s grateful that Virus is behind him, that there’s no way she can see him from this angle. Trip then performs a gesture he knows will be lost on most in the room, one he knows only another foreigner can understand, and as he meets her gaze, he runs a finger slowly across his throat.

 

**\- six.**

Trip is already four drinks into the night when Toue does the unthinkable. He gets up from his table and weaves his way over to the bar, which Virus and Trip not have left yet, primarily because Trip was doing everything in his willpower to keep the older man from wandering the room and bumping into her.

“Dinner will be served in a few minutes. I can’t have those empty seats at my table now, can I?” He’s smiling as he says it, as if beckoning children to come down to dinner, that steely-eyed grimace that really says, _Come right now and behave in front of the guests or you’ll suffer tonight_.

Virus puts his glass down and smiles back, pretending to be oblivious for the time being. “Who else will be there?”

He doesn’t have to wait long, because then Toue is taking their arms, a rare show of paternalism after so many years of preferring to avoid them, and nearly drags them over to the table.

He can see by the way her eyebrows raise, by the way her knuckles turn white around the napkin she’d only been lazily holding a moment before, that she hadn’t expected this, that after all, he was the one who had the advantage, who had had time to mentally prepare for this, as poorly as he’d managed. She had seen him across the room but twenty minutes ago, while Trip had learned of this meeting nearly a week earlier.

There are only two others at the table, two other hotshots in some research field or another, or perhaps just two people with wallets eager to be empty, and Trip silently hopes that one or both of them will be incessantly chatty, will dominate the conversation.

“Takahashi offered to keep an eye on Sei for tonight. He tends to be a less noisy sick nurse. And so we are left with a table of six.” Toue introduces everyone then, not that Trip cares. He knows who she is, and doesn’t give a damn about who else is there. All that matters is her and Virus, who Toue unexpectedly seats next to him, leaving Trip to sit on Virus’ other side, _directly across from her_. It’s too much for him to bear, especially when she speaks.

“Nice suits,” is the first thing she says as she raises her wine glass.

He inwardly flinches. The suit jacket is already tight, constricting, uncomfortable despite the alterations Virus had ordered for him. He’s never been a fan of jackets like this, but he tolerates them when necessary, when wearing nothing but a waistcoat or throwing on a baggy duffle or hoodie is inappropriate. Nonetheless, he is grateful for the added protection, the thick dark cloth to shield his nervous sweat. He hadn’t realized until he hears her voice, right in front of him, the power that she still holds over him. And he doesn’t have to look to know that the older man is already preening under her attention.

“We like to match,” Virus says then. An inane comment, obvious and stupid.

She darts a glance at him, and Trip just shrugs helplessly. That action, at least would not be out of place here.

As Virus grabs for the alcohol list, the menu, distracted by pretty women but not enough to pass up on food, she takes the moment to mouth a few words, holding her glass to the side, masking her mouth so only he can see. _Does he know?_

Trip isn’t sure what she’s asking – if Virus knows of their history, or if Virus remembers who she is. _If there is anything to remember_ , he again realizes. The first option, he decides, and he nods his head twice.

She arches her eyebrows and glances at him quizzically. She’s handling this remarkably well, Trip marvels, as she opens her mouth again and calmly suggests a wine to Virus. “Domain Leroy Pommaud Les Vignots, 20XX.”

He knows little of wine, but he knows that the older it is, the more expensive it is. Virus himself is only a dabbler, someone who likes wine but doesn’t care to study it or pay any real expense for it. And this is way out of their range, something he knows neither of them would ever be able to appreciate, and he can see Virus hesitate. He wants to play, wants to argue, ask if it’s similar to something else, show his worth, but he knows nothing about the pile of French words on the menu before him, so he readily agrees. Trip rolls his eyes and irritably gestures to the waiter, points at something on the drink menu. He’ll drink anything at this point.

The moment the waiter is gone, Virus grins and leans forward in his seat. “I haven’t seen you before, when did you arrive?”

Trip looks over at the other two at the table, a man and a woman. _Please say something. End this madness._ But they seem to be engaged in a quiet conversation of their own, utterly disinterested in all around them. People in his party then, not rich outsiders desperate to show themselves off to Toue. _Useless_.

“Two weeks ago, though I’ve visited before.” A glance at Trip that he wishes she wouldn’t do. He feels hot under her gaze. “I’m a doctor; going to be working at Toue’s institute.”

They chatter on for another several minutes about work, about Midorijima, interrupted only by the waiter who returned with the drinks and accepted a few more jabs at the food menu before vanishing again. Toue seems content to nod and smile from time to time, throwing in only a word or two, while Trip stares sullenly at the wall behind her. He’s fairly certain he’s in hell. _How can he not know? Does it mean she lied?_ But one question from Virus startles him out of his blank state.

“Do you know Dr. ____?” The doctor who raped him when he was nine, who continued to rape him until Virus gave in, went to him willingly in exchange for gifts, for sanctions against the worst of the experiments. The doctor who Virus still goes to, still bends over for years and years after gaining freedom, and Trip knows that _that_ sex is sex his partner can enjoy, and he finds himself gritting his teeth and having to close his eyes against the violence of the rage headache he feels coming on. What a stupid thing to ask. _What is wrong with him?_

“I know _of_ him. Haven’t met him yet. He seems a bit reclusive, doesn’t he? Very obsessed with his work.” That quizzical look again.

“Mm yes, his work.” It’s then that Trip realizes that he’s toying with her, seeing how far he can push her while simultaneously seducing her. Because even if she didn’t know what happened to him, a fact that Virus can’t possibly be aware of, it should be obvious to any doctor where they came from, their eyes luminescent and undeniable evidence of bioengineering. He isn’t sure why he’s being cruel, if it’s because he recognizes her after all, or because he’s merely jealous of what Trip had with her. There’s too much to think about here, and he realizes with a start that he’s obsessed, analyzed, more in the last year than he had in his entire life. No longer can he accept anything as he used to, and he finds himself hating her for complicating his life so much. And yet, that glint of viciousness in Virus’ eyes…

It’s too much, and he doesn’t know who he is protecting against whom as he suddenly blurts out, “Toue, where did you say Takahashi was?”

It’s so different, so far from the topic of discussion, that everyone is jarred into silence for a moment. But after a painful second or two, Toue smiles graciously. _This is Trip, not quite right in the head but a gentle soul._ “He’s with Sei tonight. You know how he can be around crowds.” Then to the rest of them, “____ Takahashi is my assistant. I would never have gotten as far as I have without someone else to handle the paperwork.”

A terrible joke, but the other three at the table laugh.

“And you two are Sei’s bodyguards, right?”

Trip wonders absently if Toue had mentioned that earlier – he hadn’t been paying attention – or if she has slipped up, admitting that she knows them, or at least one of them, already. “Ya,” he says before Virus can cut in, an action that makes the older man kick him under the table.

“It keeps us in shape,” Virus almost purrs, eyes half closed and eyebrows raised in that seductive way of his. Another idiotic comment. The biggest workout they have regarding Sei is carrying him from room to room when he can’t walk. Their muscles and scars come from their other jobs, a fact that she knows perfectly well. _Oh…you really are, huh…, those soft fingers tracing  over the massive tiger crawling down his back, the clouds and lightening surrounding it, up over his shoulders before coming to a neat halt around his deltoids._

Toue has that look on his face again, and Trip realizes then that _he knows_. He has to know who she is, and he still invited her, still had them sit together, and Trip finds himself hating him all the more. How could he not expect something like this? Everyone in Oval Tower knows that Virus is a whore and a womanizer.

“Mm, yes, with the security here I can imagine all the assassination attempts of an invalid,” she darts another glance at Trip and smirks, and with that the food arrives.

The food shuts everyone up for a few moments.

“And what do you two like to do here on your days off?” She asks both of them, but she addresses Trip, a fact that clearly frustrated Virus. She is grinning then as she shovels food into her mouth, not quite as classy and sophisticated as she pretends, the veneer over the poverty of her first four decades wearing thin as the evening stretches on. But the look on her face says it all. She is still attracted to him, still longs for him, and he remembers the last words she had whispered in his ear before she boarded the ferry what seemed like years ago now. Her pointed ignoring of Virus is suspicious though – either she fears him, or he really means nothing to her. _That nagging doubt again_.

“Uhm. We go shopping a lot. Pachinko. Play video games.” _Sell drugs. Kidnap people. Interrogate and kill others. Clean up. Run guns. Fuck whores. Sell whores._ But he can’t say any of that, even though she knows it all. “We’re kinda lazy.”

"You ever hear of Morphine?" Virus says it pleasantly enough, face open as he twirls his fork, eager to answer the question on his own.

Trip can see Toue's face freeze. They aren't supposed to discuss this in public, aren't supposed to let on that Toue has any connections whatsoever to either Morphine or the Yakuza. They are merely bodyguards as far as anyone who isn't a part of the underworld is concerned. Though, Trip supposes, if she is working as a doctor of the institute she can't be any better than the worst of the men they deal with in back alleys.

"The...drug?" She plays cluelessness well.

"It's just an urban legend on this island. The youth like to talk about it. He probably mentioned it because Trip mentioned video games." Toue waves his hand dismissively, giving Virus the death stare as he does.

Virus only shrugs. He isn't perturbed or phased in the slightest - he'd lost all respect and fear for Toue long ago. Trip knows he's been asking certain questions, cozying up to certain individuals, mentioning a mutual pay raise and new responsibilities and opportunities for the two of them. He's looking to rise up in the Yakuza, abandon Toue, and for the last few months he'd been pushing the boundaries. 

The conversation continues then, a special circle of hell with Virus chattering on, dominating the table and trying to impress her, an act he is not entirely failing in, while she repeatedly diverts the attention to Trip and Toue looks on, baffled. The dynamics are painfully obvious, a fact Trip feels to his very marrow. Her attraction to him, her avoidance of and discomfort around Virus, his aggressive pursuit of her and the confusion he feels over failing, Trip’s own irritation, and Toue’s poorly-concealed horror. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t incestuous lust and the discovery that his new top researcher had an affair with one of his science experiment bodyguards.

He fixates on the small scattering of ink on the back of Virus’ neck, only visible under a shirt collar when he leans forward. _E-31337_. He’d mentioned a while ago extending his Yakuza tattoos up around his neck, obliterating the reminder, but Trip knows he has a few more years and possibly another rank to go before they’ll let him take it that far. With that, he raises his hand up, touches his own number unconsciously, and slowly drowns himself in memories of a younger Virus, wonders what he was like before, wonders if the woman across the table knew him back them, or if everything was a lie after all. Not that she ever admitted to anything.  

And then the dishes are being cleared away, Toue is standing up, placing a hand on Virus’ shoulder and giving him that warning look again. Trip wonders what he said to cause this, if anything, but perhaps he doesn’t want to know. _It’s over_ , and as he leans forward, she catches his eye and winks and something deep inside of him tightens up. He knows then that he isn’t going to walk away from this after all, that he’s getting pulled in deep, that he’s going to drown all over again. And he realizes abruptly that perhaps, his life would have been better had he never met her. All he got out of her existence was sex with Virus, and that certainly wasn’t what he had expected. Not that it matters, because she’s here now and _again_.

She shakes everyone’s hand then, smiles at Toue and the other two, avoids Virus’ eyes, and stares far too long into Trip’s. It’s only when she releases him when he realizes what she has done. It’s the second time she has done this, slipped a piece of paper into his hand, and he knows without looking what it is. _A phone number_ , likely scribbled out the moment she saw him before the dinner. He wants to throw it out, but knows he can’t, not this time, and grits his teeth as he shoves it into a pocket.

Virus touches her then, a violation of all rules as he loops a hand through her arm and pulls her in. Trip’s too busy gaping in horror to try and make out what he whispers in his ear, but he can see her stiffen, her eyes widen before she can lean back, bat his hand away and smile.

“I have a briefing to go to.” But she places her hand on his chest for the barest of moments before turning from him. There is a weight to her steps that had never been there before, one that unexpectedly pains Trip to witness. She’s only been in his life again for two hours, and already the world has unsettled.

“Nice try,” he exhales slowly when she walks away. He expects a snarky comment, confusion over how she can like Trip but not him, but Virus surprises him.

“That perfume.”

“Yea. I used to smell like that.” But he remembers. _You smell so good these days. That lady you’re with now, she’s got nice perfume. Makes me…. Horny?_ _Hum, not sure. A little. Sad, too, I think_.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“You gotta try harder with her. I think she’s jes’ playin’ hard to get because I was there. Wonder how long she’ll be around…” He doesn’t know what he is saying. He shouldn’t be encouraging this, but he’s desperate to kill that train of thought.

But he knows Virus isn’t listening, knows that his mind is a world away.

 

**\- seven.**

“You really work for him then. At the institute.” He’d texted her almost immediately, dashing out a few words the moment Virus stepped into the shower last night and he had some time to himself, hating how desperate he felt, disgusted by the longing that erupted inside of him when he realized he had the chance to be with her again, while the only person in the world that mattered to him showered alone on the other side of the apartment. She’d replied immediately – _at a briefing, my ass,_ Trip had thought – and so now they lay there in her bed less than twenty four hours later, exhausted after an impressive series of fucks. Middle-aged women never ceased to amaze him, just as his own stupidity around them never ceased to amaze himself.

They purposefully hadn’t talked about anything of importance, had simply had sex as soon and as hard as possible, though she clearly expected this. She lights his cigarette, her usual energetic self even after everything, daringly close to his face as she responds, “Right now I do, yes.”

 _You work for the one you sold your son to, the one who had us cut to pieces and sewn back together as kids so he could come in and visit every month and pretend to be the perfect loving orphanage daddy._ A year ago he might have found himself saying all of that, as he’d let his guard down around her after a time, talked to her far more than he ever spoke to anyone else but Virus. But there’s an uncertainty now as he’s suddenly re-introduced to feelings he had thought were gone forever, feelings now mingled with a sense of betrayal and disgust. _I wasn’t supposed to see you ever again, and certainly not under these circumstances._ “How long have ya been doing that?”

“A couple of weeks.”

He inhales deeply of his own cigarette and lets the smoke curl from his nose before replying, letting the silence between them speak for itself. “Bullshit,” he finally whispers. “How do I know you ain’t lying again?”

“I’m not. I didn’t even get my MD until eight years ago. I worked in Europe all that time, trying to get his team to notice me, trying to get one of those sought-after invitations out here. It wasn’t easy, you know.”

He laughs, but there is a hollowness to it. He’s glad they fucked first, because he’s angry now. “What’d ya do there? Human experimentation?”

She only shrugs. “There’s a surplus of prisoners of war these days. Ever since the UNSC passed resolution 2987.”

He hasn’t the faintest clue what she is referring to – he and Virus only follow the news in that they place bets on which country will declare war next, which will get hit by a terrorist attack with ten or more deaths – but it hardly matters Because it isn’t the answer he expects, and her callousness reminds him of dozens of conversations so long ago now. Her nonchalance about him being in the Yakuza, the way she played with his gun and enjoyed his stories of murder and was aroused by the scent of blood on him. _Crazy_. If she is who he thinks she is, it’s no wonder she birthed such a monster. _Or monsters._ He’d never looked at the hard drive, he realizes suddenly, the lists of children of two blood types born on two days, the names of their mothers. “So you cut up terrorists until Toue got interested in your research?”

“I did what I had to to get back here.”

“That’s too crazy. You said you was a prostitute, yea? Destitute single mum in all the stories. And you’re not that smart. No way’dya get through med school and get this far. I don’t believe you.” He makes a mental note to look it up online later, but he suspects any work she had done would be well covered up.

“That’s fine. You never believe me anyway,” she sighs and leans back against the wall beside him, not bothering to pull the blanket up to cover her breasts.

Trip tries not to look at them, tries not to get distracted. “But you came here a year ago and left again, yea? You had a shitty hotel before I paid for a good one. I saw you get on the ferry.” _You said you loved me._ But he doesn’t add that.

It’s her turn to fall silent then, to furrow her brows and study her nails. It isn’t the first time he’s caught her off guard. “I’d been accepted then, but the invitation was a year out,” when she finally speaks, she does so slowly. “I wanted to come back to the Old District first. To see how it had changed. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into before wrapping things up in London.”

“Dumb reasons. Why would anyone wanna come back here?”

“Why do you think?” she snaps then. And when he doesn’t respond, she snatches the cigarette from his hand and angrily puffs. “Come take a bath with me. You didn’t have to _pay_ for this hot tub.”

He hesitates, all too aware of how easily he’d slid back into whatever he had with her back then, and all too aware of just how similar to Virus she is. The assumptions. The assertiveness. The languid confidence. If she really is his mother, he took everything from her and nothing but the double eyelids, the Asiatic cut of his jaw, from his father.

And even as he lets her take his arm, pull him out of bed and towards the bathroom, he wonders where Virus is right now.

 

**\- eight.**

Virus comes onto him that night, climbing into his bed and rubbing against him while making those soft noises that make Trip forget everything but him, so he folds around him and kisses him, silently grateful he’d taken that bath now, left no trace of her perfume on him. There’s nothing here that Virus can be attracted to but him. Trip is exhausted, but he’s not going to turn down this opportunity, not when those slim fingers slip around his waist and down the front of his pants and he can feel that breath on the back of his neck. He rolls over quickly, slides a hand down Virus’ back as he pushes him down, parts his thighs as the older man grabs the lube they both keep under their pillows these days. 

And when Trip sees his fingers twitch every so slightly around the bottle, he abruptly remembers how the last few times had gone, how his enthusiasm wanes and he grows stiff, uncomfortable. Because it’s already beginning. He can feel the trembling in his thighs now, a trembling he knows is not of arousal but of apprehension even as he pulls the younger man down onto him and nips at his ear, pushes two slicked fingers into him. But his ass is too tight, muscles convulsing around him, and even after several minutes of frustrated finger-fucking, he can’t even scissor his fingers inside of him. It’s too much work, and the discomfort on his partner’s face is all too clear. _It’s happening again_. The Virus he has always been attracted to likes what he likes. He doesn’t pretend unless there’s a way to manipulate the situation to his advantage, which Trip knows is not happening here. No, this is Virus acting abnormally, tolerating something to satisfy someone else, and he finds it annoys him.

He stops then, rolling off of him with more force than he intends and sitting up, leaning back against the headboard as he pointedly avoids eye contact. He is grateful for the half-darkness, less grateful for the mirrors along his entire wall that he has come to regret in recent months.

“What’s wrong?”

“You don’t like it.” He tries and fails to keep the bite from his voice.

“I like it.” He’s pouting faintly, which he does rarely enough, and Trip has to resist the urge to run his thumb over those lips.

“Why you lyin’ about it? You get all stiff and make those noises, can’t even get it up. I can tell you’re stressed.” _And that comment you made before the dinner…_

He sits up then, pulling the blanket into his lap as if to hide himself. “I’ve wanted it for a long time, though. I was after you for years.”

“Doesn’t mean you like it,” he snorts. “It’s fine if you don’t want to do it but I…”

“I do want to do it!” He snaps. There is something in his voice that suggests desperation, longing, and for a moment Trip wonders if it’s _jealousy_ , that dreaded thing that is not meant to exist between them. “How many times do I have to say that? It’s just hard.”

 _It isn’t hard with anyone else_ ; _you’re a whore with everyone else. I’ve seen you, heard you,_ he thinks, but he lets it sit between them, because he knows Virus has just said something he hadn’t meant to say, and he isn’t going to call attention to it, isn’t going to make him more uncomfortable than he already is. The older man has made enough allowances for him over the years to allow this to slip by.

Virus sighs. There is nothing he can say to the silence, and so instead he slowly leans back until they are shoulder to shoulder. And then he says it, another slip, topping even his first one. “You only started fucking me after she left.”

He wonders then if Virus only ever came onto him tonight because of her, if some part of him, buried deep beneath the ice, once again fears Trip will leave him, if that’s why he’s tolerating all of this. It isn’t a pleasant thought. “Got nothing to do with it.”

Once again, Virus pretends he’d never said anything, and some time passes before he begins touching him, mouthing his neck gently as he strokes his dick for a few minutes before ducking down, long fingers holding his hips as he deep throats him. Trip lets him, and as he twists white-knuckled hands in the sheets a thought rises unbidden in his mind. He thinks about assaulting him, about slapping him next time he stiffens up, about forcing him, and he finds the notion unexpectedly arousing. But he doesn’t know how the next morning would go, doesn’t want to risk making things even stranger between them. Yet still, he grabs his head, acting on instinct as he thrusts up into his mouth and holds him there, forcing him to take him even deeper. There is surprisingly little resistance, Virus only flinching as he deep-throats him, and Trip gasps when he comes inside of his mouth, watches as he swallows everything down. Only then does he release his grip, and Virus sits upright, gasping. The older man is good at what he does, the triumphant gleam in his eyes as he wipes his lips attractive even after the abuse, Trip has to admit.

And then Virus is sitting in his lap, arms wrapped around his neck as he presses his lips to his ear and whispers.

 

**\- nine.**

“What did he say to you?” They hadn’t talked about him at all that first night, but she knows immediately what he is referring to, as if she knew the subject had to come up eventually, as if he were on her mind and she was just waiting for Trip to mention it the next time they got together.

“He asked me to go to a hotel with him.”

“He’s nasty, yea. I told you he was a slut.”

“I don’t know if that’s the right word for men who go after women. Is it?” She’s detracting now, unwilling to acknowledge what he’s become. It’s things like this, Trip supposes, that make him believe she is his mother. _But he doesn’t recognize her_.

He wants to ask her why Virus doesn’t recognize her, but he doesn’t dare. Even after all this time, he finds himself unwilling to be too direct. He isn’t sure if he ever wants to know. “He likes bottoming though.”

“You’re sleeping with him now, aren’t you?” She says it innocently enough, but she’s too interested, leaning too far forward, her drink long forgotten.   

“Kind of.”

She laughs, finally picking up her beer again. It’s four in the afternoon and she’s on her third can already. “What does that mean?”

“It means the sex kind of sucks.” He hasn’t realized it until he says it, and he regrets it as soon as he does. It isn’t for her to know, but he keeps going anyway, grateful that they’d chosen to get a private room at the bar. He hadn’t taken her out much, back then, worried about running into Virus somewhere, worried about running into _anyone_ , but the secret is out now and there’s no way the older man doesn’t know they are seeing each other again. “He gets really tight, like he can’t relax or something.”

“You knew him since you were kids, hm? Maybe that is weird to him.”

Trip snorts. “Even if he saw me as a kid, doubt it’d matter. Kids having sex isn’t exactly off limits to him.”

“That sounds a lot dirtier than you meant it, I’m sure.” She pauses then. "Speaking of kids… Toue said he only took kids who were good at Rhyme. I never hear you talk about it though."

"Bullshit. I was six. He just took all the street kids, the poor kids. Most of 'em weren't special at all. Jes’ wanted to make what he was doing sound more elite." He kicks his feet up onto the table and leans back, staring out the window. Seventeen flights up, the highest building on the island outside of Platinum Jail. The shopping options are limited enough, but he and Virus have found that spending more time in the old district has its benefits. The anonymity, the seediness, the proximity to everything they’ve been taking more of an interest in as their patience with Toue wears increasingly thin. _And she isn’t going to help matters there. He had to know who she is when he employed her…_ He grits his teeth. It irritates him, how he could do that to Virus.

“I thought so. I read his records and never saw anything about Rhyme talent. They just wrote… that he was a child prostitute. Before they even got him. I didn’t….”

He waits for her to continue, waits for the _didn’t do that to him_ , but it could just have easily been _didn’t know_. “More bullshit. They was just covering their tracks. In case anything weird showed up later. Deviant behavior or whatever.”

He remembers when he found out. One night at fifteen before his young lust and curiosity had caught up with his common sense, when he dumped a date rape drug into Virus’ drink and hungrily watched him gulp it down, oblivious. He never planned on taking it that far, only wanted to touch him, enjoy studying his body when there was no risk of him waking up. But Virus had surprised him, arched up against him with a soft moan, as if it were muscle memory. He’d hesitated then, suspecting something was off but unsure of what, before standing to flip through his wallet, still on the table beside him, and he had realized just how many bills were in there. The street drugs they occasionally rarely brought in bills that size; most of their dealings that resulted in this much money came in stacks and cases, brought right to their boss for a small cut that would materialize in their bank account. He’d sat on the couch in front of him then, moving slowly despite knowing he wouldn’t wake him, and carefully counted the money. An absurd amount, and more than a few business cards of men in random professions they had no business communicating with. He’d understood then. And he touched him again, tentatively, stroking his cheek and running a thumb slowly over his lips. Again Virus responded, taking his thumb into his mouth, between his teeth. As if he had done it a thousand times, his body reacting unconsciously. _Whore_. Probably ever since he was a child to react that way. He’d groaned then, thrown himself back onto the couch, unwilling to even touch him again, because in that moment a thousand instances of his childhood suddenly made sense. It had seemed wrong somehow, in a way he’d never been able to fully explain to himself, even though he realized then that he could have done whatever he wanted, could have shoved his dick in his mouth or even fucked him and Virus would have responded, would have woken up feeling raw and used and aching and might have just assumed it was someone else who did it to him. He did nothing, and instead followed the older man from time to time, watched him hang off the arms of random men in clubs and vanish with them after midnight, noticed how much their drug supply fluctuated.

“Was it really that bad?” she whispers.

He doesn’t meet her eyes, looks away as he shrugs. He remembers those videos and cringes. He knows why Virus did it, knows that it probably saved his life and even Trip’s life, kept them from the worst of the experiments, just as he knows that Virus would kill him if he knew that he knew.

“That’s probably why the sex isn’t great.”

“Huh.”

“If all someone is used to is that kind of thing. Just getting used and thrown away. Then sex with someone they don’t hate gets uncomfortable.”

“Oh.” He isn’t sure he wants to think about that too deeply, not when he’d been pushy with Virus just the other night, not when Virus had said what he had afterwards, so he says instead, “You sound like ya know what that’s like.”

She grins then. “I told you many stories, hm? And you never believed a one of them, did you?”

“Nope. Don’t believe a word you say,” but he knows that at least part of that particular one was true, because he’s been with enough women by now to know who’s been abused, to know who is attracted to the aura of violence and danger he gives off, the tattoos on his back and the cash in his pockets and the hardness of his biceps. His favorite type of woman. Especially when they are as pretty as she is, as energetic in bed and as assertive in nature. He makes too many allowances for her, forgives every lie before it’s even out of her mouth, lets himself fall because he likes her more than he should, even now.

“But you think you know who I am, even though I never said it.”

“I know _because_ you never said it.” He ignores the doubt seeping into his veins, just as he struggles to ignore the fact that he’s been doing this far too much lately.

 

**\- ten.**

They have to break his legs to fit him in the trunk, Trip groaning in exasperation as he unzips the body bag and smashes the knees with a bolt cutter. Virus watches him with a curious expression on his face, lips twisting up at the corners gently. There is unadulterated lust in his eyes, a lust that he knows will fade by the time they get to the bedroom. Virus himself rarely acts violently against their targets, but he watches Trip maim and kill with an abashed desire, as if the violence arouses him.

"Where did he say to put him?"

"Ah, coin lockers by the shopping arcade along Kawaramachi."

"Really lockers big enough for that?"

"Six of them. I already reserved one." He swings a key from his pocket and grins. He’s pleased with himself – disposing of bodies is an ugly job, with far more people in the ranks willing to kill than those willing to risk getting caught with a corpse in the trunk, which means the pay is excellent.

Trip bites back his own leer in response. It's times like this when he can forget the awkward nights, when they are on runs together. He'd been stressed, strung up recently from the unexpected direction his life had gone in the last six months, had offered to pick up the more violent cases solely for the chance to blow off steam, and Virus had readily gone along with him. A soft smile and long fingers silently spurring him onward behind him, now beside him as he slams the door closed. “Do ya think his life flashed before his eyes?”

“Ooo that was a good one! What do you think he forgot, hm? Maybe his wife cheated on him, or his dog died. Maybe he got beaten as a kid, failed his high school entrance exams…that’s the kind of thing people cry about, isn’t it?” Virus chatters the entire drive, only eleven minutes, as there is little traffic at three in the morning even in the worst districts of Midorijima. He has that look in his eyes the entire ride, desire, attraction, need, though neither address it, and neither acknowledge the way the older man's hand runs over his thigh when he throws the car into park and pops the trunk.

He has the body hoisted over his shoulder and half in the locker when he sees the sign.

"We can't put him in there," he sighs.

"Why not?" Virus is a whisper behind him.

"Says no bodies."

"Ah," he sighs, long fingers trailing down Trip's shoulders.

It's an old habit, one Virus had long shook off and one that he never admonished Trip for clinging to, the habit of obeying stupid rules, minor orders that mean nothing. Brush your teeth twice a day. Wait until the crosswalk sign turns green. No dead bodies in the coin lockers. He can kill and maim and torture and kidnap and rape, but he can't break a petty order, because he remembers the shocks, the admonishings, the denial of food, of sleep. They have different injuries buried deeply inside of them, and they are injuries they never mock one another for, never bring up or call attention to. And in that momentary silence, Trip remembers the comment Virus had accidentally made the other night, the words he let slide past them because they weren’t meant to be heard.

"Put him back in the trunk. We'll throw him in the harbor then."

"What about the message?"

"It's okay. We'll think of something else." He trails his fingers down his arm as he speaks, the old comforting hum that he has always been, and Trip feels himself relaxing, smiling even. And he wonders then if it’s worth it, if they even need the sex, because perhaps this is all he wanted from Virus after all. They work well together, complement one another, always know how to behave, a fluid unit.

The thought lingers until Virus suddenly turns from him, strides back to the car swinging the keys he’d slipped out of the younger man’s pocket while his mind wanders, and as he walks, his hips move in just that way that arrests Trip and makes him forget everything but him.

He bites his lip and closes his eyes _. Fuck that_.

 

**\- eleven.**

She knows it's him when she hears the room buzzer.

Or she thinks she knows, because when she opens the door, it's the wrong one, and the smile dies on her face when she realizes who is standing in the hall outside her hotel room, sees the look of confusion and hesitation in his eyes when he opens his mouth to speak. 

"You're my mum."

She can't answer, can't find any words left in the world, but the blood she feels draining from her face must be enough of a response for him. Because she lost a son twenty-odd years ago.

He laughs then, nervous and ingenuine. His voice is soft when he says, "This is weird, yea?"

When she finally collects herself enough to bow her head, that word 'mum', not mother, reverberating deep in her marrow, all she can say is, "Come in."

But he's already moving past her, holding his shoulders close so as not to touch her, and his strength and size is all the more clear as he passes. He's over twenty centimeters taller than her, and he smells of expensive cologne and silk shirts and power and money and sex and a thousand other things she had never believed would be in his future. _Her son_. Nearly thirty-two now. Other than that dinner, the hundreds of photos and even videos Trip had shown her, it's been over twenty-two years.

He takes over the room immediately, surveying it carefully, glancing out the window and flicking the lights on and off again, before sitting on the edge of the bed. There is an assuredness in his actions that demands attention, but it is clearly masking something else, something he himself is either unaware or uncertain of. There's something of Trip in him, a brooding violence akin to that of zoo animals, dormant but lurking, pained, and she resists the urge to touch him. Ironic, that after all these years apart, her son still ended up the kind of man she could love.

So she crosses her arms, brings her hand to her mouth and waits in darkness for him to speak. It isn't a long wait.

"I don't remember." His voice cracks and something like a shudder goes through him. "I thought I decide what I forget but I don't remember anything."

He's making himself as small as he can, legs crossed and arms folded across his chest with his shoulders hunched. He holds an unlit cigarette, looking like a child playing the role of an adult, and she remembers how he behaved as a child. The same. So oddly mature, so quiet and polite, respectable. Eerie. Unnerving.  

He doesn't say anything for a long moment, as seconds stretch into minutes and he chews on the cigarette, fingers twitching in what could be nerves, could be contemplation, could be boredom. It's clear this isn't a situation he is used to being in, just as it is one she isn't used to. She wants to reach out to him, to hold him, but they'd never been like that. Not then, and certainly not now.

"Trip knew the whole time?"

"Not...not the whole time, I don't think. He figured it out eventually. Used to say I just reminded him of you." She sighs then. She wants to say more, wants to tell him not to be angry with him, but if ever there was a man to side with in this discussion, she knew it had to be him. Virus.

"He's weird."

"Sorry I slept with your boyfriend." She feels it is the right thing to say, even if she isn't particularly sorry, and closes her eyes a moment. This, too, she should say, though she hates to think of what it may bring. "Sleep. I can stop, if you want."

That startles him, "Why? Boyfriend?"

"Aren't you two..."

He waves his hand at her. "I don't care who he sleeps with. We're partners who fuck."

Stupid. They are equally stupid. No wonder Trip could never figure it out. She's seen enough photos of the two of them together, side by side in their matching outfits, laughing and making faces and leaning into one another, to know it's much more than that. But if after nearly twenty years of being together, after six months of sex, if they still acted like this, she supposes it is a lost cause. The closest her son could ever get to love, the sickening perfection of their symmetry, their symbiosis, was finding his soulmate and being too stupid, too damaged, to realize it. At least they were sleeping together, after all this time.

Because he's so clearly damaged, and her next words come out abruptly, unexpectedly. "I shouldn’t have left you there."

"I'm fine."

 _No you're not. You don't recognize me and I raised you for nine years_. "But they..."

He cuts her off. "I met Trip there. I’m fine."

"He said you were twelve when you met. You were nine when I..."

"I don't remember those years," but there is a sharpness to his voice that betrays him, and she remembers all that Trip had told her about him, that the abuse started at nine, that by the time Trip had met him, he’d been raped into complacency, that for the rest of his life he bent over for anyone whose wallet was fat enough. She knows trauma has a way of making people forget, of turning memory into lies. _I thought I decide what I forget._ That is a subject she isn’t ready to pursue.

"Did he tell you? Who I am?"

"No. Well." He hesitates, studies his nails for a moment. "I know what he believes. That whole time he was with you last year, he acted weird, wouldn't ever let me meet you. And at the dinner too. It wasn't like him at all. And sometimes he'd tell stories about you, then get that stupid look on his face like he knows he said too much. You know that one?"

"I do."

"He said he coaxed you into having sex on your period. And he started to make a joke about it, about-"

She groans, holds her hand out. She remembers that night all too well, her gently dissuading Trip while she sat around in yoga pants and a T-shirt, feeling filthy and fat, the younger man sitting next to her, chin on her shoulder while he flipped through his phone, showing her that indeed, orgasm supposedly helped with cramps while he worked his arm around her and his hand down her pants. She'd never been able to refuse him, his husky voice and the uneven dimples on his cheeks when he gave his crooked grin. How Virus resisted as long as he had it a mystery. "I don't need to know."

"Oh." He stops, clearly as confused as Trip sometimes gets when it comes to social etiquette. "He has a fetish for that. It's a little weird, isn't it? I put it together after that anyway."

"You really didn't recognize me."

He hesitates, meets her eyes and stares for a long moment. "We look similar. That’s it."

 

**\- twelve.**

Trip knows something is wrong the moment he returns from the conbini to find the apartment empty and Hersha shut down. And still he checks the Allmate, silently hoping the charge had simply run down, there was a malfunction, a _virus_ , but no, he was switched off. Their Allmates are carefully programed to keep one another up to date on their vital signs, their GPS location. Trip has learned that by checking Hersha’s stats when Virus is out, he can sometimes even tell when he’s having sex, a fact that led to a lot of covert masturbation when younger. He’d thought it was a secret until one evening years later when Virus had casually mentioned that he’d specifically programmed that in, that he could check Welter whenever he wanted and know when Trip was fucking. And wasn’t it odd that half the time when Trip went out with women, he didn’t even have sex? It was one of a thousand hints Virus had dropped over the years, hints that he wanted to sleep with him, that he was attracted to him.

And now Hersha is shut down, which means that in all probability, Virus has turned his chip off as well, blocking those vital signs, preventing Trip from accessing even his location. He never does that unless he knows that Trip, the only person who has access to his code, would be annoyed with where he is, and it almost invariably means the same thing. _The doctor_. Trip has never confronted him on this, never gone to pick him up, never acknowledged that he knows where Virus goes during these times, just as he’s never said anything to the doctor either, as often as he’s considered it. He isn’t going to change that now.

He sighs then, flicks open his coil at the same time he pulls his phone out of his pocket. As expected, no messages from him. GPS disabled even on those devices. They’d developed off habits over the years, allowing one another significant access to their lives while still maintaining a distance between them, a distance that even now, Trip is realizing, remains between them. He surprises himself by being unsure if he dislikes it.

But this, right now, is too much. It’s coming too closely on the heels of too many other abrupt changes in their lives. He’s never been one to ask for advice, but he supposes exceptions can be made when it comes to Virus. He pockets his phone again and leaves the apartment less than six minutes after coming home.

 

**\- thirteen.**

As he continues to stare at her, there is a violence in his eyes that unnerves her, and at the last second she says something stupid to distract him. “Those glasses look pretty thick. Are you still half-blind even after the eye transplant? I was so worried when you were little…you acted blind as a baby. Then when I could finally get you glasses… They told me they’d give you new eyes. There. Then.”

He blinks, as startled as she’d hoped he would be. "I still can’t see well but I don't want to talk about me."

She’s curious, then – _did they really replace the entire eye or is this a neurological malady?_ – but unwilling to make him more uncomfortable than he already is. "Then what?"

"Let's talk about Trip."

"You know he always did this, too. He kept bringing you up so much. Even before I saw photos and knew it was you."

He ignores the comment, running a finger over his mouth before speaking. "He can be pretty rough. Is he with you?"

She sighs then, unsure if she wants to be talking to him about sex, if it's acceptable given the circumstances, but she's intrigued despite herself. "It's part of why I said yes when he asked to see me a second time."

"You like it rough then, hm? I do, too."

She isn't sure what to make of this statement, so she stays silent. And sure enough, he goes on.

"I like when he's rough and pushy. I used to fantasize about him raping me, as soon as he hit puberty and he got big. He started having sex with married women at fourteen and I'd just sit at home and drink and wonder what he was doing to them. Wish he would just force me sometime, touch myself thinking it. And that was how it went for ten years. I wondered what he was doing to you those six months, that lady who he started spending too much time with, how he was fucking her..." he stops then, the question in his voice clear as he arches an eyebrow.  

She gapes, opens her mouth and closes it twice before she can find the words. "That's not appropriate."

"Appropriate?" the word sounds like mockery on his tongue and she remembers things Trip had told her about him. Cruel things. Horrifying things. But who is she to judge? Her own actions are what created him, so she tells herself.

"I'm your mother."

" _If_ that’s true, you spreading your legs is why I exist. I of all people should be the one you tell these things to." There is a brutal simplicity to his statement, rage simmering just below the surface, and she wonders for a moment if he despises her, hates her for bringing him into this world just as much as he hates her for leaving him. But there's something else there. Possessiveness. As if he has a right to know, as if he owns her somehow.

And she realizes then that he does. Because she feels so much guilt over what she'd done to him, over what happened to him as a result, because for all his money and jewelry, all his power and violence, he's still damaged, broken somehow. He never grew up. _If_ that’s true.

"Well, if you won't do it, I will. Want to know how he fucks me, hm?”

She doesn't want to imagine it, but she does, because this is Trip he's talking about, her one-night-stand who lasted for six months - or maybe eighteen because they just fucked last night - who made her say one foolish word she'd thought she'd never say again. She knows him too well, his habits, his expressions, his fetishes, and his sheer adoration of the man in front of her now, her son. Yes, she can imagine it well. Trip going down on the man in front of her, fucking him so hard he sobs until he throws his head back and his spine arches so violently that his shoulders lift off the mattress when he orgasms. She can imagine his knuckles white against the sheets and the veins of his wrists visible, the arch of his feet and the way his thighs twitch from the exertion of the position, his eyelashes sticking together in tears and his lips peeled back in a grimace of pain and ecstasy... she scarcely even realizes he's still talking until he stops. Until he stares at her and cocks his head.

“I lied. The truth is he isn’t rough enough. The sex is hard for me when he’s gentle and slow. I have trouble getting it up sometimes. It’s too…” he sighs. “What’s happening now is too much.” 

“But you like being around him, don’t you?”

“I do. And it’s not good for us. It's funny how I can’t like that kind of thing. I wonder why..." and his lip twists upward as he glances sideways at her.

She is unsure now if he is cruel or clueless, if he knows how much Trip has told her about his past, and she realizes she has to turn this conversation to something else fast. “Chauncy.”

He jolts slightly, as if the word triggered something within him. _Recognition_. "Was...is that...my name?"

"Yea. Chauncy," she repeats. The sound is strange to her ears.

"Don't tell Trip," he says quickly, recovering.

"Why? Is it a bad name?" It had been the first thing she could think of.

"He'll be annoying," he laughs, another nervous gasp, "Or he'll want you to name him, too."

"I haven't said it in so many years. It's a little weird, isn't it? I thought it was cute… you were so tiny and blonde. Born a little early but you still had such a fat face. And Trip has a few names already."

"Huh."

"I...looked up his file." She shrugs. It had been a mistake, a slip when she began to let herself care too much about him, think for a moment that he was hers, but she finds herself stalling, unsure if she wants to share with Virus what she knows. _Jealousy_. Trip had always called her a bitch. "His mom gave him....do you want to know?"

"Yes." Then he pauses. "No, I don't care. Well. I want to know. Maybe."

"That covers everything."

He only shrugs, a ghost of a smile emerging on his face. He's relaxing, much the same way as Trip relaxes when talking about him. "I want to know about him but I never ask him. Before we started fucking, I used to ask his girlfriends what he'd do to them. So tell me what was in his file. But make up a few stories. I don't want to know that much about him. I want to have to guess and ignore what I don't like."

She laughs then. _Make up a few stories._ If only he knew how good at that she was. "I told Trip a lot of stories, too. He couldn't figure out if they were all different parts of the same one or not. Or what was a lie."

"Trip gets upset about lying even though he does it all the time himself."

"Somebody, his mom probably, left him in a coin locker in Osaka. She left a note with some crazy Irish name on it and then also added something like 'If you can't pronounce it call him Kelly.' But that's not a pronounceable name in Japan either. Dunno what they called him before he got to the institute. Lump, maybe."

"Kelly." He grins fully then, touches his mouth in that way he used to as a child. She’d used to think he did it because he was shy about his teeth, until she realized he only did it whenever he did something wrong or was at least thinking about it, which was remarkably often. "What was the other name?"

"Beats me. It was Irish."

"Like Patrick?"

"No, no, the Irish language. Gaelic. Nobody from England knows that. We all pretend it's not real because the only time we hear those names is when there was a bombing." The Troubles, resurfaced over a century later. “Only a few days after he was born there was a suicide bombing in Tokyo, at the British Embassy. Some redhead Irish girl in the CIRA who had trained in Chechnya the previous year. There was speculation she was the mom, what with the note that was left with him.”

"And he's a redhead. But you know that, hm? He's still red everywhere else. It's cute."

"He is cute," she sighs. “The baby was found by a Yanki team, bunch of teenage derelict girls. They kept him for five or six years before he got taken away from them for child endangerment, ended up at Toue’s place all the way out here because nobody wanted a Yanki kid.”

“Is that why he wears skirts and makeup sometimes?”

“Uh…”

“His adopted mum was a Yanki and his real mum was a terrorist? Isn’t that too much? Trip’s exactly like them; it’s too perfect. Uncreative.”

She glances sidelong at him, at the way he sits, the look on his face. _The spitting image_. “Aren’t all sons like their mothers?”

He waves his hand. “So Kelly huh.”

"I wouldn't have named him either of those though."

"I don't believe you about his names," he says then, his tone still pleasant, conversational, "Trip said you're a liar."

"But you believe me about Chauncy, don't you?" _Please, please remember that. Remember how I used to ruffle your hair and sit you in my lap and teach you English because I couldn't afford to send you to one of the bilingual schools but I wanted you to know your mother's language. Didn’t you ever wonder how you knew it?_

"The name is too stupid to be a lie. But go on, tell me more Trip stories. You got to do better this time. Make me guess which is real."

"Why don't you just want the truth?"

"I don't want to know that much."

“You should know it though. He’s your brother.”

He jerks his head up and stares at her, eyes wide, incredulous. “Huh? Really?”

She nods slowly, biting back the grin now. He’s cute when surprised, just as he was twenty-two years ago, those eyebrows so pale as to almost be invisible. “Why do you think he clung to you right away? He remembered you, somehow, deep down there. You were the only one he was comfortable around because he already knew you.”

“Why do you know so much about him? And why don’t I remember?”

She ignores the first question. “You don’t even remember me.”

He lowers his eyes then. “We have sex. I sometimes wanted a sibling because I wanted to see if incest was all that. It seemed hot.”

“You’re crazy.”

“So he had sex with both his mother and brother? Impressive.” This one has caught him off guard, excited him somehow. “Then how come you gave us up at different times?”

“You got sick. I didn’t have the money to take care of you, and at the time I thought it was just a hospital… it has better facilities than anything else on the island, after all. So I had no choice but to leave you there, and then money got harder and harder to come by. After having two kids my line of work wasn’t so easy anymore.”

“Whore,” he says it simply, but his next comments are eager. “No wonder your sons ended up fucking. So we lived together three years? Was his dad ever around or was he just a _client_? Did I like him?”

“He stuck around for a few months but that was it. You were always a little jealous about anyone I talked to though… You never did anything but you got tight-lipped and pissy, like you still do now.”

He bites his lip. “What was Trip’s name?”

“Audrey,” she says it before she can stop herself, think of something different.

“Audrey and Chauncy? They go together. Almost like it’s true.” He narrows his eyes then. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Don’t make it so obvious.”

She’s gotten good at this over the years. “His mother gave him up because he had brain damage. He even had a father who was around, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. I hear that a lot of parents of kids like that…get divorced, abandon the kid. It’s too hard to take care of them and they blame each other. They stuck it out for a while though, were two Americans here on permanent work visas. I think one worked for the embassy or something – anyway the family had a lot of privileges, a lot of money, but they couldn’t fix him and in the end couldn’t cope anymore, I guess.”

“How’d he end up that way?” He’s curious again, because as boring as this version of events is compared to the other, the brain damage. Trip had admitted to her that he’d never told anyone else about it other than Virus; there’s no way he could know how she knew.

“They don’t know, really. He had a bad fever as an infant, according to the records, but that’s pretty inconclusive. It doesn’t usually cause the kinds of problems he has.”

“How do you know his family had money though? That’s too much from medical records,” he says it sharply, and she knows it’s because he wants to, needs to find holes in every story. Something about Trip being upper class American by birth must irritate him, _because he knows he’s far from that._

She arches an eyebrow. “His parents paid Toue Inc to take him off their hands. He was the only kid in the whole place like that, so of course he got special allowances. That all goes in the records. It’s probably why he got the job that he did, why they took better care of him even though he was a little terror.”

“They took better care of him because of me.”

“If you say so. You were twelve, hm? You’re pretty self-important…”

“I am important,” he snaps then, that blistering hatred in his eyes suddenly reappearing. “I’ve controlled the last thirty-one years of your life.”

 

**\- fourteen.**

He’d never liked him very much, never liked anyone other than Virus and perhaps the woman, but he tolerated him because he was the sponsor of both him and Virus, because his wife was their boss. Trip can recognize he isn’t bad, as far as people go, and that unlike Toue, his affection isn’t entirely ingenuine, though perhaps that is the problem. And the fact that he’s been fucking Virus for twelve years and seems to know far too much about their relationship has always irritated him. He hadn’t expected his partner to be here, in this private home that he’d only been to a half dozen times in all his years in the Yakuza, but he knows this man knows a side of Virus that he doesn’t, and within three minutes he’d told him a highly shortened, edited version of events.

He groans when he hears everything, rubs his temples as he so often does whenever Trip talks to him. He somehow escaped the rapid aging that a life of drugs and crime causes, and looks only fifty, could even be attractive if Trip liked men besides Virus, but his impatience with youth betrays his true age of something closer to sixty. “Does he know who she is?”

He doesn’t know “who” she is. Again, that confusion seeps into him. Who is she? His mother? Whose mother? Or is he merely asking if she is the woman Trip had been sleeping with all those months? “He knows she was the one I was with,” he says finally.

“Not what I asked. Who is she anyway?”

He hesitates. “Dunno.”

“Is she his mother?” He asks it so bluntly that Trip feels something lurch inside of him.

“I dunno. Might be. How do you know?”

“Listen to me and cut the shit. She is or she isn’t, now who is this woman?” These is something about him that demands respect, an air of authority that has always puzzled Trip, as he knows this man spends at least half of his life being pushed around by his wife, another middle-aged woman who managed to terrify and control even the most violent of men.

He doesn’t answer immediately, mulls it over in his mind for a long moment as he studies the rings on his fingers, the wingtip shoes propped up on the coffee table. “Might be his mom. Might be no one. Might be my mom. Our mom.”

“ _What_?”

He knows the cigarette is going to turn into a column of ash in his fingers now, but he avoids eye contact. “It’s complicated.”

“Did you _know_ she might be your mother?” He’s incredulous, enraged.

“Ya.”

“Jesus, Trip!” He slams his hand down onto the arm of the chair and kicks the table in front of him. “You fuck a lady who might be your mother and you don’t even care? And Virus might be your _brother_?”

Trip flinches. He’s never seen him angry, not like this. It had always been a cold and calculated rage, meant to instill fear instead of betray emotion. But he can’t find the words to a response. Can’t figure out how to say he’d sleep with Virus if Virus were his own father.

“I thought he was a mess but you’re fucking nuts. _Shit_. Your own mother.”

“Stop it, okay? I know it’s fucked up. Ain’t that stupid.” And then he asks again, because he isn’t interested in hearing someone repeatedly tell him that he and Virus are a wreck. “What made you think she’s his ma? He say something?”

He sits back and sighs. “Whatever, sicko. Because she’s making him remember stuff. Or maybe it’s the sex you two are having. Something that happened to him recently shook him up. And if he keeps being made uncomfortable, he’s going to get pissed. He doesn’t like being compromised, not that way anyway.”

Trip doesn’t answer. He’s sure the last phrase is a reference to his sex life, to how Virus likes being _compromised_ with him, but he can’t decide if it’s a jab at him, how much Virus has told him, so he remains silent. He scarcely even registers the rest of what the older man had said until he hears him continue.

“He’s going to kill her or you and if he comes after you I am not even going to try and stop him. You deserve it. Shit, I can’t believe you. And you’d keep that from him, after everything he’s done.”

He again says nothing. He doesn’t need this, because he knows it to be true.

“You of all people should know how terrible his wrath is.” He remembers a time last year when he’d casually asked Virus what he’d do if he ever met his mother.  _Play Russian roulette with her cunt._

“Yea. I do.”                           

“Do you know where he is right now?”

He hesitates. “He turned his GPS off.”

“You guys are freaks. Get out of here.” He waves him away, only to abruptly jump up and grab his arm. “Be careful. I’m serious about him being pissed.”

He checks despite himself when he gets home. They’d never questioned one another’s violence, readily accepted everything they did, because the only loyalty they had ever had was to each other. He should trust him, he knows this, but he remembers the way his fingers curled around the coffee mug this morning, the way too many teeth showed and his eyes gleamed when asked what he was going to do that day, and he’s opening every drawer and door in Virus’ bedroom before he can stop himself.

His gun is gone.

 

**\- fifteen.**

“You’ve always been a little stupid. Too smart for your own good with no clue how to act, making assumptions about everyone and thinking you’re always in control. Even your little trick with the wedding ring at the dinner. Trip even told me that you knew we had a history together. Did you really think he’d never mention you? That he would probably have told me if his room-mate, the person he is infatuated with, was _married_? Maybe your tricks work for most people but I’ve known you since…”

He’s staring at her now, those unnatural eyes wide and surprised. He clearly isn’t used to people pushing back, and when he finally speaks, in a voice far smaller than what it had been a moment ago, it isn’t a question but an affirmation, a dawning recognition. “Since.”

She is taking him in her arms then, without stopping to think of what he might do, without considering the slight bulge in his suit jacket that she knows to be a gun, without care for how big he is now as she pulls his head to her shoulder and runs her fingers through his hair. And not once does she bother regretting it, not even when he immediately stiffens in her arms, because scarcely a moment passes before she feels him relax. It's the first time, the first time he didn't remain frozen and stiff in her arms, the first time he leaned into her touch, because in the nine years she was with him, he’d always been distant. She almost doesn’t hear him whisper, in a voice far too small for his age, “I thought I was in control. I could only forget the bad things. Why is it the opposite?”

There’s nothing she can say to that, and so she kisses his forehead, runs her fingers through his hair. Time passes outside of them, though as she continues to hold him she feels as if it were going backwards, as if he were a child again, and this time she hadn’t let him go. Memory is a strange thing, every remembrance one has only recalling the last time one remembered that experience, as opposed to the event itself. Every time one remembers, all they are doing is forgetting a little more. And she has remembered the moment of giving him up a manyfold thousand times by now, every day of her life – she’s moved far beyond what truly happened, whereas Virus, _Virus_ has never remembered it at all, and is closer to the truth in the small locked room of his mind.

He is slow to respond, slow to raise his hand up to her shoulder, and when his fingers touch her, the glass shatters around them and time returns in all its viciousness. _He’s angry he said that_ , she realizes. Because there is a pressure to his grip as he gently but firmly pushes her back, a faint menace in his voice when he speaks that reminds her of Trip, reminds her of who they both are now, whatever they were as children. "Let me stay here tonight."

"If you tell me you remember.”

“I can’t.”

 _Let him feel that he’s in control. It’s all he wants._ “Because you don’t remember or you won’t admit it?”

He shrugs, and she finds herself weakening under his gaze. Those eyes she recognizes more from Trip than from the child she once knew.

“Fine.” She decides to ignore how quickly he brings his fingers up to cover his mouth, and just how many of his teeth show when he grins.

 

**\- sixteen.**

She wakes up to him touching her. They’d fallen asleep together, however uncomfortably it had been. Trip had told her he often took hours to pass out, and he did, lying stiffly under the blankets in his dress pants and button-down shirt – he’d started to take his pants off only to have her order him not to, an order he had unexpectedly obeyed, looking startled and even embarrassed – only to eventually slow his breathing around midnight, a full two hours later. She doesn’t know when she herself fell asleep, though it hardly matters now, because they are both awake, and his arm is around her as he pressed against her back, curling over her.

"Is this really what you want?" There is no surprise in her voice, only resignation.

“Yes,” he says simply, seemingly sure of himself for what must be the first time that entire night.

She closes her eyes and breathes through her nose for a time as she remembers what he'd say about Trip. _We just fuck._ Despite being so obviously in love, it's the best he can manage. He can't understand anything but this. She can come back into his life, love him and beg for forgiveness, become the mother she had failed to be twenty-odd years ago, but her mistake so long ago had damaged an already cruel child beyond any concept of sorrow, of regret and forgiveness. And she also remembers what both men had said about the sex, that it was difficult, that Virus was uncomfortable, nervous. Perhaps he does feel something, after all. Perhaps sex with someone else he has a complicated past with could resolve things, set him free from the suspicions he must have carried all this time. She wonders if she owes it to him then, owes it even to Trip, to let her own son have his way with her so that he might know sex is more complicated than he seems to think. "Wear a condom."

"No. You didn't make Trip every time. We the same operation anyway."

"It's not that. I just..." _Don't want to feel you. Don't want to have to clean you out of my insides again_. But there’s no point in saying that. “You act like you’re jealous about him. Or jealous over me. I can’t decide.”

“Don’t talk anymore.”

The dominance he bears down on her with surprises her – she hadn’t expected him to be so similar to Trip, not with what she’d heard about him, but the way he is with women is clearly not the way he is with men as he promptly strips her and crawls between her legs. There is a cruelty to the way he prepares her, just rough enough to be uncomfortable all the while maintaining a stoic distance, not seeming to take any delight in it, and as he begins to fuck her there is no shift in his demeanor. He never once uses his mouth, not to speak and not to kiss, scarcely even to moan, biting back his grunts and gasps by biting his lower lip and pressing his face to her shoulder. All she can do is hold him, trace her fingers up and down his back and discover every scar, the products of his childhood in a cage, stuck full of tubes and needles on the whims of those she abandoned him to; there are a lot of those scars. When he orgasms he covers her eyes, continuing to ride her until she climaxes only a moment later. She doesn’t care to acknowledge that he’s good at what he does.

The regret that seeps into her veins and settles in her marrow when it is over is not regret over the sex, but regret over the foolish idea she had had, that belief that she could show him love through such an act, that she could somehow help him understand that it wasn’t all about power and that feeling some sort of emotion during it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, that he could go home and sleep with Trip and finally relax around him. Because as he whispers in her ear a _don’t think about leaving_ before rolling away from her to sleep it off, she knows that it truly is nothing but power for him, revenge, rape even with her consent, rage at the world because of what he can and cannot remember, of what lives he’s lived and forgotten, of what he failed to wall up in his mind.

She presses herself against his back then, wraps her arms around him and listens to his heartbeat for some time. When she speaks, her breath ghosts the scar on the back of his neck, the numbers imprinted on his skin just above it. “I’m sorry I failed you.”

She’s surprised she is able to sleep. And the next morning he calmly gets up, redresses himself and turns the hotel coffee maker on and sits in the chair by the window with his legs over the arm with an unreadable expression as he studies her. The dawn light filters through the blinds, casting him in both light and shadow, and she finds it’s easier to fixate on the dust motes in the sunlight than his eyes when he finally stands.

He doesn’t touch her as he leans forward and says softly, “I wouldn’t do this if you hadn’t said that last night.”

She knows it’s coming before she feels the cold barrel of a gun pressed against her forehead. She’d apologized to him, violated his perception of the sex, of all sex, and therefore sparked his rage in a way nothing else she’d done to him had. She isn’t afraid of violence or death, least not from him, the one person she supposes she deserves this from. She wonders if he remembers now, staring at her down the barrel of a gun, remembers hiding in a closet as a child, watching through the slats as his mother sold herself to men as tattooed and violent as he so he could eat that night, as his mother would occasionally check the small handgun she kept in her underwear drawer. But in the end it doesn’t matter. Memory can lie.

He studies her for a long moment before speaking softly, authoritatively. “I want you to leave.”

There’s a lot she can say. _Please don’t. I love you. Forgive me._ But she only says, “I have work.” _Work I sought solely to see you again._

“Forget your job. Leave. I don’t care if you see Trip again but I want you gone within twenty-four hours. I’ll be checking the flights.”

“If I don’t?” But she knows she’ll leave, knows it’s the best she can do for him after all of this. There’s no reason why he’d want her in his life now. _He’s taken all that he can use._

He doesn’t reply, only pushes the gun harder against her forehead and flicks the safety off.

It’s only what she expects, so she merely lowers her eyes and nods once. She doesn’t have to look at him to know what his expression is as he lifts the gun away from her and steps back a pace. _Pitiless_.  

He only pauses when his hand is on the doorknob, an imperceptible shift crossing his face as he slowly turns back. It’s only two strides to the side of the bed, and when he raises his hand again, she inadvertently flinches, even after she sees that he has put the weapon away.

He presses his lips to her forehead once, kisses her where he’d pressed a gun a moment ago, and cradles the back of her head, holds her against him for what could only be a few seconds but feels like thirty-one years. Mimicking the gestures she’d extended to him last night when he’d broken down, said too much, and she knows then what he means by it.

And then he’s gone.

 

**\- seventeen.**

He hadn’t moved since he’d realized the gun was gone, had merely sat on the couch in Virus’ room, had buried his face in his hands and sat there as if frozen as the night stretched on. He doesn’t remember sleeping, but he doesn’t remember what transgressed that night either. His loyalty lies with Virus, he knows this now – _and you’d keep that from him, after everything he’s done_ – a loyalty he’d nearly broken. Wherever Virus is, whatever he is doing, however many rounds are in the gun when they cross paths again, Trip supposes he deserves this. It’s all he can expect, after all.

It isn’t even seven in the morning when Virus comes home, scraping the key against the lock before managing to unlock it, making as much noise as he ever does, and Trip has the door open while he still stands there with the key, arching his eyebrows at the abruptness of the doorknob moving away from him.

He doesn’t even get a word out before Virus is pushing into him, shoving him back into the room and slamming the door behind them. “Fuck me.” He grabs his arm and Trip finds himself focusing on those fingers, long and tapered and so _pretty_.

“Now?” All thoughts of her are driven from his mind the moment he hears that word from his mouth. Virus isn’t even normally awake at this hour, and in the rare circumstances when he is, he is a terror.

“Yes, now. Hard.” He’s running his hands up Trip’s torso, pressing his body against him and mouthing his throat. “I want you to be rough with me.”

“Is that really okay?” _You can’t even handle normal sex,_ but he doesn’t say it, because he can already feel himself getting hard. _It’s a good thing we have the day off…_

The older man steps back and arches his eyebrows again. “Remember how I called you when you were on a hit mission last year to jerk off to your voice? Isn’t that obvious enough? The gentle stuff is too much for me. I have too much time to think about it.”

“That was really all it was?” _Think about what, though?_

“It was good when you got pushy the other night. Why’d you think I was having a tough time?” He’s pulling Trip towards his bedroom now, kicking off his shoes, eyes narrowed from the width of his smirk.

Trip shrugs helplessly; he can scarcely hear words, because all that is Virus is rapidly enveloping him now, drawing him into that safe shell that surrounds them at the best of times.

Virus hesitates then. “When you went too slow I thought you were thinking about her. I figured you treated me like a girl, but she said you were rough with her.”

“You were…” But he doesn’t say it, never says it. _Jealous_. The word that has hovered between them since all of this began a year ago now, and there’s no need to dwell on it any longer. Because now he knows for sure. _He saw her last night._ “Did you kill her?”

“Eh?” Dropping his suit jacket to the floor, reaching for his tie, he doesn’t meet his eyes when he shrugs, “It’s too much trouble. You know I hate moving bodies on my own and I’d have to make her disappear to avoid questions. Why would I do that anyway?”

He could grab the gun from the holster he now throws on the couch, see how many rounds are still in it. But he doesn’t, because he has always trusted him, and he does now. After all, he hates moving bodies on his own. The relief he feels flooding his gut surprises him – he hadn’t realized just how much he’d believed Virus had killed her, just how protective he had felt of her when he realized that the gun was gone, that his partner had gone to her, the only person on the island besides himself who could make him feel enough to act so irrationally. “Did she tell you who she was?”

“Dunno,” he grins as he steps out of his pants.

“Is she your mum? Our mum? Some random lady?” But he’s no longer paying attention to the conversation, only studying those long white legs. His legs were longer than Trip’s, despite being the shorter of the two, lean and muscular with an illusion of softness in a way the younger man felt was somehow inappropriate, almost offensive in their attractiveness. He’s wearing his shirt garters, modified suspenders strapped around his thighs to keep his shirt tucked in – Trip had always suspected they served more of a sexual than a practical purpose, which he knows how to be true as Virus spreads his fingers and runs a hand up his thigh and hooks a finger beneath one. He’s thankful in that moment that Virus is what he is, that he knows how to make every act, every gesture, every article of clothing and tilt of the head, a moment of seduction.

“I’m not gonna tell you,” and he’s pressing a finger to his lips, a triumphant gleam in his eye now. “You kept her from me for too long so now you have to wait until after.”

“Wait until after what?” But he doesn’t really care anymore.

He doesn’t answer, only takes Trip’s hand in his and pulls him to the bed.

He’s different this time, Trip recognizes immediately. Voracious, insatiable, his body pliant and eager and accepting, nothing like how he used to be. He’s trembling as they undress one another, mouths and hands everywhere, but it is not the same, because now he is desirous, hungry, impatient, a tremor of arousal and when Trip runs a hand over his crotch, he can feel his hardness, feel the damp patch on his underwear from where he’d already leaked precome. _He’s never been like this before,_ and Trip bears his teeth in a grin because he realizes this is the Virus he has always wanted, fantasized about. The Virus who laughs often, purrs and writhes as he kisses and bites him, mutters obscenities in his ear and pushes a finger inside of himself when Trip takes too long with the lube, walks a delicate line between sluttish desperation and control with an obscene flush to his cheeks. _Finally_ , the gap between the two Virus’ that he has lusted over all these years.

He fingers him roughly, bites a path down his throat, collarbone, chest, belly, to deepthroat him once and push his tongue into his ass, something he’d never been allowed to do before, and Virus lifts his hips as he arches against the pillows and twists white knuckled fingers in the sheets and moans loudly, his dick twitching and leaking. _He’s going to climax before we even fuck_. He can’t let him do that, and with that realization he’s entering him up to the hilt immediately, for once his body reacting properly to the lube, the fingers and tongue. _Harder, harder, harder_ , is the gasping mantra in his ear as he takes him hard and fast, brings him to orgasm in less than half the time it normally takes. He fucks him from behind next, flipping him onto his stomach and pulling his hips up and his thighs open, not even giving him time to breathe before shoving into him again. There’s something exhilarating about the sex this time, similar to the first time they’d fucked, before the uncertainty seeped between them, but it is somehow different even from that. There is no hesitancy, no lack of awareness of what the other wants or needs.

When he rolls off of him then, gasping for air, Virus almost immediately climbs on top of him, straddles his hips as he leans over. “Come in me again,” he gasps.

“Are you crazy?” he stares at him, incredulous. Those manic eyes and eager grin, hair plastered to his forehead in sweat. He knows how Virus acts when on drugs, and this is something different. Not chemical but _personal_. “You wanna go again you have to do the work.”

And Virus only laughs, kisses him slowly as he reaches a hand behind him and touches Trip’s half hard organ until he can sit back on him. It doesn’t take long, and Trip marvels at his prowess, at how both of them can keep going like this, even when Virus is thirty-one and normally exhausted after one climax, as he lays back and admires the view. Hands occasionally gripping those hips, running up the hard planes of his stomach to finger his nipples and make him squirm and gasp.

The older man only pauses once, stretches his body over Trip’s torso and whispers in his ear as he grinds down on his dick. “Go see her tonight,” he whispers, and in the moment it takes him to realize who Virus is speaking of, Trip knows he has momentarily forgotten about her. _But she’d only laugh to know this was why_ , so he only nods, unsure of why Virus is suddenly encouraging this. It doesn’t matter though, nothing matters except for that tight heat convulsing around him, the slick mess over his torso from everything leaking out of Virus now that he is upright. And he thrusts up hard into him in response, causing him to arch his spine and raise his shoulders, bare his teeth and widen his eyes in shock. Trip doesn’t know how he finds the energy to fuck him hard then, and he can tell that this at once surprises and pleases Virus, mewling and gasping against him now. They come at nearly the same time, and it’s only after this third round that the smaller man finally falls asleep, curled on his side with Trip wrapped around his back, a gesture they might have balked at even a week ago.

Trip stirs awake at one point to realize it’s the afternoon, that he’s picking up Virus’ horrible habits of sleeping through his days off, but _Virus_. He’s still beside him, and Trip notices only then, just as he pushes up against him and inhales his scent, that he has an erection. He kisses the back of his neck once, twice, before biting his ear, dragging him from his sleep to whisper an _again_ in the older man’s ear.

“Oo, I can’t again,” but even as he says it he’s turning towards him, opening his legs and hooking one around his hips, that lazy grin emerging beneath half-closed eyes. “Just go slow.”

“Isn’t the gentle stuff too much for you?” He murmurs, “not that I mind…” Because any sex with Virus where he isn’t pretending, where he likes what he likes and doesn’t like what he doesn’t like, where he is the Virus he _knows_ , is good sex as far as he is concerned.

“Mm, shut up,” he purrs in his ear, running circles over the back of his neck with one of those tapered fingers, manicured nails. He still hasn’t opened his eyes all the way, and there is a languid sultriness to the way he wraps himself around Trip, buries his face in his neck and mouths him gently. Trip knows just by running a finger up the cleft of his ass that there’s no need to prepare him, as stretched and open as he still is, as _wet_ as he still is from everything the younger man had left in him earlier. Virus scarcely reacts, he slides in so easily, nothing but a twitch of those fingers, a slight tensing of the body and a soft gasp.

The fourth fuck they have that day is the longest, both of them exhausted, drained, but unwilling to let go just yet. And just as Trip feels himself relaxing, enjoying the slowness, it happens. Virus stiffens up suddenly, and Trip feels panic wrenching through his gut. _It’s happening again. They can’t have sex like this after all._ He knew it was too good to last, because Virus is pushing weakly against his chest, gasping, pushing him _back_ , and he feels himself panicking, softening. “ _Virus_.” The word comes out more desperate than he intends.

He’s laughing then, a near-hysterical and breathless exhalation. “I just came,” he gasps. “Dry. You drained me.”

 _Fuck_ , he inwardly curses himself. They’d never had sex this often before, but he should have remembered this about Virus from the threesomes they’d had in the past. “Was that it…You barely even made a sound.” But it’s all he needs.

“Yea, yea. What’d you…oh _god_ ,” he throws his head back as Trip pushes his right knee flush against his shoulder and grinds down _hard_ into him, and the younger man fixates on the whiteness of his throat as he climaxes, the violence of it flashing through every nerve in his body.  

Trip watches him sleep for some time, surprising himself with how awake he feels when he’d been worn to the bone only ten minutes before, how content and alive. Virus is prettiest when he sleeps, even after the exhaustion and fluids of four rounds of sex are apparent all over him.

Virus stirs only once, opens his eyes and stares at Trip for a long moment, the corners of his mouth curling ever so slightly. There’s something in his gaze that Trip doesn’t recognize, an expression he’s never seen before, but he knows immediately what it is. He knows then, that whatever wall had been shored up between them in the last six months, the last year, whenever this slippage of the past had begun, had been washed away.

 

**\- eighteen.**

 

 _Go see her tonight._ He almost didn’t, too drained, too content, too sated on that smile Virus had given him, but as he mulled over the statement in his mind, the urgency struck him. Tonight. 

He grabs the door, pries it open and pushes his way into the room. “What’s your problem?”

She doesn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t want to see you again.”

 _So that’s it._ He studies her for a long moment, examining her face for bruises, wondering what marks might lie beneath her clothing. “After the shit you said six months ago? He told me to come see you so what’d he do to you?” But he already knows the answer. 

“You said yourself he’s a slut.”

There’s a lot he can say to this, but he decides he can get the details later. _Though what does it matter; I don’t even know who she is, after all._ “I thought he was going to kill you. Said he was gonna Russian roulette your – ”

She holds a hand up to cut him off. “I can imagine.”

“I like fucking girls right after him. They smell like him. If he skips a condom it’s extra good,” he folds his hand around hers, draws her to him. Even after what he knows, she is still attractive, even more so, perhaps. _She looks just like him_. And yet even now, when he no longer needs her as a stand-in for the partner he can’t touch, he is drawn to her.

“You two are disgusting, you know that?” But she’s smiling finally, and he finds himself grateful for that. “It’s been sixteen hours. I took a shower the second he left.”

“Boring.”

“You don’t seem phased by this.”

“We share girls all the time,” he shrugs. “Why should I care? Unless he… Did he finally recognize you?” Because despite Virus saying he would tell all, he hadn’t, had scarcely even stirred when Trip disentangled himself at four in the afternoon and gone off to do what he’d ordered him to.

“He knew since the dinner I’m the one you were with last year.”

 _This misunderstanding, this evasion again._ Trip groans. He still can’t bring himself to ask it directly, to force the fact of her relation to or not to Virus out, and so he finds himself in this vicious cycle. “Whatever. Was he any good? Did he seem pissed?”

“Not as good as you.” It seems to be as far as she wants to take the conversation, because she’s pulling him to the bed now, and for the second time in twenty-four hours he feels himself dragged along for the ride. Her own hands are eager, with a fierce and quiet desperation that is of more than longing and loneliness, and Trip is momentarily reminded of their old _last_ night together, so far in the distance behind them now, as he takes her fast and hard. He doesn’t have the energy for a second round, not after what Virus had just put him through, but he surprises himself with the strength he is able to take her with, with how he is able to climax within an appropriate time, with how satisfied she seems afterwards.

Something about the sex nags at him though, as he slides out of her, kisses her yet again as he runs a finger down the slickness between her legs. “You jes acted the same way you did back then. Before you said you were leaving.”

“He told me to leave within twenty-four hours or he’d kill me. But he said I could see you again.”

“You goin’ then?”

She nods once, and that is all the confirmation he needs.

“So you really are his mum, to do what he says like that. And not mine, too? ‘Cause if I told you to stay, you wouldn’t?”

“Did you really think that?” She looks startled, the ghost of a smile tracing her lips. “You’re sick.”

He shrugs helplessly, relief flooding into him yet again. It isn’t the fact that they slept together, or the idea that he and Virus are brothers, that unnerves him. It’s the possibility of losing his mother, a woman he isn’t sure he ever even knew, _again_. It’s the possibility that in all his years of sleeping with others’ wives, of seeking out damaged and lonely older women, he’d found _her_ and hadn’t recognized her right away. It’s the possibility that he finally found her, only to discover he had to share the one person who mattered the most with her. “You said some shit. Made me think ya had two kids.”

“I never directly said it. I wanted to confuse you, was a little jealous then. Angry that you only ever saw him.”

“Jealous of your own son.” But it doesn’t bother him, because he’d always known that to be true. Because he’d only initially slept with her because she reminded him of Virus. Because of all the women over the years that he’s fucked, he was always only ever seeking someone else. The one person he didn’t want to use.

“I don’t mind now, though. You two are…” She absently smooths the blanket out, and he ignores the trembling in her fingers. “I did what I could for him. I don’t think he knows how to forgive, not when he understands so little of emotions, of relationships… I didn’t expect him to, but he didn’t even seem to get what I was saying. He’s a lot worse off than I thought.”

He doesn’t like the reminder that Virus is as broken as he is, doesn’t like knowing anyone else knows that about him, and doesn’t expect the jealousy, the protectiveness, to boil forth as he spits out, “He’s fine.”

“He said the same thing.” She meets his eyes then, gazes at him for a long time with those same eyes he used to adore in a different face before they were cut out, replaced with ones of a different shade. “He said he was fine because he met you.”

For the third time in less than a day, Trip feels it again. That sensation, flooding through his body and replacing his blood with pure and liquid relief. _Even after all the bad sex, even after six months of believing he had ruined everything, even before what happened today, Virus still said that_.

She reaches for her makeup bag then, a small satchel that Trip had never bothered to look at too carefully in all the times he’d gone through her things when she showered. There, nestled between a packet of oil blotters and some other mysterious feminine item, is a slip of paper in a plastic sleeve. She looks at it for a long moment, an indecipherable expression on her face, before she leans over and presses it into his hand.

He inhales sharply. A photo. It’s her, in her early twenties, thinner than she is now, with longer hair and sunglasses pushed up over her head, wearing nothing but a simple sundress. And sitting in her lap, leaning into her arms and laughing at the camera just as she is, is _Virus_. He can’t be older than six or seven. The children’s t-shirt with a tiger on it, the jean shorts, the mismatched socks, all would cause him to pitch a fit today, but at six these things did not matter. He is beautiful, gentle, innocent looking, with a round face and gangly legs and messy blonde hair that is even fairer than it is now, bright blue eyes and child glasses perched on his nose. But most of all he is _happy_. Trip had only ever seen that expression on his face once before. _Last night_. After their sex. And then he suddenly understands everything. “Oh,” he whispers. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath for so long. “ _Oh_.”

“He’d just gotten the glasses that day. His eyesight was really terrible but I had a lot of trouble getting him help. It took a while, but he was so excited to be able to see everything. In all the nine years I knew him, that was the happiest he’d ever been. It’s…a little like the face he makes when he talks about you.”

“Oh.” He can’t say anything else.

But she’s still going now, clearly unable to stop, her voice shaking and distant. “After that first day though, he was awkward with the glasses. He kept fiddling with them, scrunching his nose up and touching the lenses, saying they felt funny, always taking them off to rub his eyes. I was so scared he’d break them but he was such a careful little kid. So serious…and the glasses just made it more obvious. It took him a while to get used to them.”

Trip’s silent. This outpouring of emotion beside the image before him is too much.

“You were right all along. You knew him too well for me to keep evading the truth.”

He still can’t tear his eyes away from the picture. Virus Virus _Virus_ , at the same age Trip was when they had met. _I wasn’t even born yet, probably_. “You’re both so happy here. Why’d you give him up, really?”

She only shakes her head and smiles sadly. “He doesn’t remember, doesn’t want to know. We can forget, but we can’t undo the past. I thought it was the right thing, back then. I… He said he only remembered the bad things. Does that mean I was… a good memory?”

He doesn’t know what makes him say the next words. “You still love him, yea?”

But she’s the same as him, suddenly sniffing, leaning back and wiping a hand across her face, avoiding any question that enters territory too close to the space beneath her ribcage. “It’s all I have of him. Keep it.”

When he meets her gaze, he can see the dampness of her eyes. “Don’t you want it?”

“I’m ready to let him go.”

“So it’s really goodbye this time? You ain’t never coming back?”

“No. You two don’t need me anymore, do you?”

He knows then that whatever she’d done, whatever she’d said to him last night, was what led to Virus’ actions today, the words he’d whispered when he thought Trip was asleep. _I did what I could for him._ He’s grateful for her then, grateful for her ephemeral existence in his life, grateful for what she’d said to him six months ago on the pier, for what she might have said to Virus last night, even as he says the next words.

“We won’t need you. We’re fine.” He looks down at the photo in his hand again, traces a finger slowly over the face he knows so well. “We’re fine.”

She smiles sadly then as she squeezes his hand. “I know.”

 

**\- fin -**


End file.
